


What Money Can't Buy

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-21
Updated: 2008-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's nearly Hogswatch and Sam Vimes searches for the perfect gift for Young Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Money Can't Buy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Raindrops on Roses

 

 

It was Young Sam's second Hogswatch and Sam Vimes determined that he would find his son the best Hogswatch present ever.

A special gift had never occurred to him on his son's first Hogswatch, when Young Sam's main priority had been sleeping, drooling, and crinkling wrapping paper in his chubby fists. Young Sam had still been a baby then, uninterested in banging drums unless guided by his father's hands, and the clockwork soldiers whirring and clanking had made him cry and turn his face into his mother's bosom.

But Sam was nearly two now, still round with infant chubbiness, but walking and talking, or at least making vaguely word-like sounds. Instead of wispy curls he now had a cap of shiny brown hair, and his clever little fingers, while still occasionally clumsy, could build a towering edifice of at least three blocks before it tumbled down to his delighted chuckles of joy.

The trouble he was having picking out the perfect Hogswatch gift for a child, Sam Vimes reflected, was that he had no real experience with the matter. Growing up on Cockbill Street an average Hogswatch present was a threadbare second-hand coat that his mum might have bought anyway, what with the younger Sam shooting up so fast. Or perhaps a pair of shoes to grow into, wadded with newspaper in the toes and heels so that they didn't fall off when he walked.

On Hogswatch morning there might have been a fat pork (or pork-like) sausage to share for breakfast, and perhaps a few rashers of bacon cooked in an egg pie for dinner. And that was a good Hogswatch for the Vimes family.

Sam didn't feel deprived in any way when he reminisced about the past. One thing about having Nobby Nobbs as a friend, you always knew there was someone who had been worse off than you were. And Sam had had his mum, which was more than a lot of poor buggers had. So it wasn't with a tear in his eye that he looked back on those days. Cockbill Street children soon learned that pressing your nose wistfully to toy shop windows only got you a cold nose.

So Sam wasn't bitter, but there was a quiet determination within him to do better for his boy. Not materially, because even though Young Sam was set to grow up one of the richest boys in Ankh Morpork, Sam was determined that his son would not grow up only valuing the material things in life.

There had to be some happy medium, right? Between poverty and wealth? Between Cockbill Street and Scoone Avenue? 

000

"Perhaps you could spend Hogswatch as Angua and I do?" Carrot suggested when Sam happened to bring the matter up. "Serving hot meals to the less fortunate." "That's how you spend Hogswatch?"

"Every year," Carrot said. "It's remarkable how satisfied giving can make you feel."

"I'm sure," Vimes said, who gave a great deal of his acquired wealth to various Children's Homes, Old Sailor's Homes and the Home for Retired Seamstresses. "But perhaps that's something for when he's older. I'm not sure he'd appreciate the sentiment at not-quite-two."

000

"Gold," Cheery said promptly when asked. She had a festive garland of tinsel woven in her beard and a shining ornament swinging gaily from each ear.

"He's not-quite-two," Sam reminded her. "I'm not sure gold is age appropriate."

"Silver then," Cheery suggested, and then shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, dwarfs aren't very good at presents that don't involve gold. Did you ask Igor? They love giving presents."

000

Igor's cellar was lit by a curious green phosphorescence. Jars lined the shelves, some gently bubbling, others swirling torpidly. On the bench was a huge turnip with a wire extending from it and a bolt on either side of it.

Sam gazed around the room, then quietly backed out and closed the door behind him with a click.

000

"What does Lady Sybil reckon?" Sergeant Colon asked when the question was put to him and Nobby. "Wives usually have very definite ideas about these things."

"She has everything planned," Sam said gloomily. He was starting to think it was hopeless. "A rocking horse from the attic which is being repainted and, er, re-maned."

"And re-tailed," Colon said, nodding wisely.

"Just so. And there's a box of bricks and a stuffed dragon."

"All Top Quality stuff," Nobby said in satisfied tones. "As befitting Young Sam."

"Well yes, of course," Sam agreed. "But it just doesn't seem... I wanted..." He looked at their uncomprehending faces and sighed inwardly. Of course they didn't understand when he could hardly put it into words himself.

"I'd of given somebodies eyeteeth for Top Quality stuff like that as a nipper," Nobby said wistfully. "Even Old Top Quality stuff from some rich nobs attic."

000

But that was just it, Sam thought. Young Sam was going to be rocking on the horse his mother and grandfather and probably a few grandfather's before that had rested their noble young buttocks on. They were family heirlooms from Sybil's side of the family, or toys bought with Sybil's money.

And yes, he knew it was their money now, in fact on paper a lot of it was his money now. But it still felt like someone else was providing Young Sam's gifts while his father gave him nothing.

000

"You've come to the right place," Chancellor Ridcully said cheerfully. "You want and enchanted flute? Plays a lullaby to put Young Sam to sleep every night? Most parents would give somebodies eyeteeth for a gift like that, ey?" He nudged Sam playfully. "No? How about a nice new blue blankie? Bespelled to provide a perfect night's sleep?"

"Are all your gifts designed to put children to sleep?"

"Mostly, yes."

"That's not very festive."

"True," Ridcully admitted. "Although to be fair, this isn't a bloody toyshop."

"Just as well I'm not after a toy then," Vimes said. "You've known me how long, Mustrum? Do you really think I want anything magical for my boy?"

Ridcully surveyed him for a few moments through clouds of pipe smoke. "So it's wisdom you've come for then?"

Vimes shrugged, feeling defeated. What a brilliant plan, come and see a sworn celibate for advice on children.

"Well then, let's think about this." Ridcully puffed contentedly for a few moments. "What did you want when you were a little lad?"

"I've been through this," Sam said, shaking his head. He explained about a Cockbill Hogswatch while Mustrum smoked and nodded.

"How very affecting," the chancellor said politely when Vimes was done. "Quite brings a tear to the eye. But you weren't listening, old chap. I didn't say what did you get, I said what did you want? From your own father?"

Sam barked a laugh. "My father? Well, let's see. Him showing up would have been nice."

Ridcully smiled delightedly and sank back in his chair. "That might be a place to start then."

000

"And then he said, 'that might be a place to start then'," Sam said bewilderedly to Sybil that evening. "What do you think he meant?"

Sybil smiled and patted his hand. "I'm sure it will come to you if you think about it," she said, not very helpfully in Sam's opinion.

000

Young Sam was dozing when Sam tiptoed in. Their nightly ritual of storybook reading was done; Young Sam had been lulled to sleep by the ticking of the clock and his father's patting hand. Now he lay tucked under his blanket, eyes at half-mast, little fists opening and closing and rosebud lips pursing.

"Da," he mumbled when Sam crept in and with a guilty look over his shoulder Sam picked up his son and sat back in their favourite rocker.

Young Sam leaned into his father's neck, fingers tangled in the stiff Watch collar.

"It's all a bit much for a simple man," Sam said softly, kissing his son's sweet smelling crown. "I suppose they're trying to tell me just being here's enough, which is fine and dandy, but you can't wrap that in paper covered with pork chops and piglets now can you?"

"Oh Sam." Sybil appeared in the doorway.

"He was awake," Sam said defensively.

Sybil sank down on a small padded chair and patted his knee again. "Sam, do you really think Young Sam cares about expensive gifts at his age? He has everything money can buy already."

"But that's what I've been saying all along," Sam said. "I want to give him something money can't buy."

Young Sam stirred in his arms and Sam automatically patted his back, whispering a hushed reassurance until the baby snored softly and drifted back to sleep.

"My father loved me," Sybil said with a sad smile. "I never doubted it. But I don't remember him rocking me to sleep, Sam. Or reading me a story. There's all the time in the world for the perfect Hogswatch present, my dear. But there's such a short time we can rock Young Sam to sleep and sing him lullabies."

This was true, and Sam mulled it over as his son grew heavier against his shoulder. Time, which could drag by so slowly while a man was standing in the snow waiting for his shift to end, seemed to fly by in a twinkle when it came to a baby. Why, it seemed only yesterday that Young Sam had been a frighteningly small pink bundle in his mother's arms. Only yesterday that Sam had realised this same bundle, although slightly larger now, held all the happiness and joy of the world in his starfish-shaped hands.

"How about Hogswatch Day?" Sybil suggested. "From midnight on Hogswatch Eve to midnight on Hogswatch night, you spend the holiday with your family."

"But..." Sam said automatically, then broke off. Well, why not? He'd been on call last Hogswatch, Carrot wouldn't mind taking his turn this year. In fact hadn't he suggested something just the other day in one of his memos, taped to Sam's desk drawer where he kept his cigar box?

His wife was looking at him hopefully, and Sam wondered if this was perhaps a gift he could give her too? Sybil didn't complain, she never complained, but over the years Sam had certainly spent a great deal of time apologising for missed meals and late nights and forgotten anniversaries.

"You're right," he said. A resolve lit within him, similar to the resolution that had fired him when he had begun reading Young Sam his sacred story every night. "You're right. You and me and Young Sam together all Hogswatch."

Sybil smiled gently at him. "Even if there's a crime?"

"Even if the entire Bank of Ankh Morpork is carried away by the entire Thieves Guild," he swore.

And he meant it too.

000

As it happened he wasn't tempted away at all. It was an unusually frosty winter, which, as any copper will tell you, is a quiet time for thief-takers. Even the crooks were snuggled up safe in their beds, whilst visions of pork products danced in their heads.

Hogswatch morning dawned crisp and icy, and Sam kissed his wife, lifted his yawning son, and the Duke of Ankh Morpork boiled the kettle while the Duchess made the toast. (Sam always insisted the servants take the holidays off. People seemed to think he was being generous when he made this gesture, but really he just appreciated a few days of privacy a year.)

The presents were a hit; Young Sam rocked on the low wooden horse, jumbled the new bricks with his old ones and immediately chewed at the stubby ear of the stuffed dragon.

Sam waited until the novelty of the toys had worn off and the last of the smears of jam were wiped away before he produced his own gift. He had appreciated the advice from his friends and the words of his wife, and he was very much enjoying the time away from work and responsibilities, devoted just to his little family.

But he had still wanted to get something for his son, something just from him, and so he had walked to Cockbill Street and watched the children tossing snow at one another, and finally remembered exactly what he had wanted year after year and never even asked for.

"Oh, Sam!" Sybil exclaimed when Sam bashfully slipped back inside the cosy kitchen. He carried a tiny golden puppy, so small he could hold it in one hand, all ears and eyes and pink, lolling tongue.

"For when I can't be here," he explained as Sybil gently stroked its velvet-soft head.

Sam laid her in Young Sam's arms. "Gently," he murmured, but Young Sam was already carefully touching satin ears and smiling into wide black eyes.

"Puppy dog," Young Sam said, and beamed up at his parents. He snuggled her close, laying a smooth pink cheek on her silky head. "Mine."

Sam watched his family, in his home, in his city, and smiled as well.

"Mine," he echoed.

The End

 


End file.
